September General Update: Development Status, 3D Terrain, Updated Cards & More!
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Hey everyone, I am back in action after a nice trip visiting my wife’s family. I wanted to post a general update for everyone and in the next few days will post the first article in the “class in depth” series I have mentioned where I break down the details for each class in Blood Throne including abilities, lore, upgrade options and more. Sorry for the delay on that but my personal life got in the way for a while.
Development Update
First of all, here’s where we are with the game development process. We are a bit behind on my initial projections. All of the miniatures are done as I have shown in previous updates. That is the most complex part of the entire process.
What is lagging is something I did not anticipate which is the books and the organizer trays, also as I have mentioned previously. The books are written, the art is done, and the core rule book is as I speak being laid out! The organizer trays are in the works now but will take 6 weeks or so to finish. Getting them to fit all of the tokens and minis and fit in the box with all the other books and maps, etc. is more complex than I had anticipated, but now we know and will allocate more time for future projects for this portion of the process.
Above is a sample page from the book. We got almost all of the various charts and diagrams done, we decided to up the quality and have some isometric 3D renders of maps and such on the way which will look fantastic but does take time to get done. We also had to design a lot of symbols and filler art as you see in the upper left and lower right corners of the page as I had underestimated the amount of artwork we would need to avoid walls of text in the book. Turns out making a full color rulebook with art, lore and such is more complex than I had anticipated but as this is my first time doing this, that is to be expected. The upside is we are not cutting corners on quality and have added a lot to make it look like a premium product. Obviously for the future I now know how the process works and so it will be smoother as we go. However, per my last conversation with the factory it is now looking like late January/February is realistic for fulfilment. I am working nonstop to try and stay on schedule but I want to be realistic and transparent with everyone.
Hero Boards
Above is the updated and finalized version of the Hero Boards. The Hero Boards are what you use in the game to track all of the stats and status effects for each of your heroes. They are modular so that as the hero levels up and gets new gear, etc. you can easily track it during the game. We added the name of each stat in addition to the symbol to make it easier to use as well as making it more clear which stats have two slots for numbers as they can go above 9 and may require two number tokens as they increase (like HP for example). The full Hero Sheets are in a workbook to track all of the details and leveling options for each Hero in depth, most of which you do not need while playing the game. You can also use the App obviously to track it all digitally as well.
Game Cards
We also spent a great deal of time updating the various game cards. Initially we were going to use only text and symbols but it left the cards feeling a bit underwhelming visually. Blow is the original version.
We added art to the cards which obviously spices them up tremendously from a visual perspective but was a pretty massive undertaking as their are several hundred cards in the game. We also added text to the symbols as we did with the Hero Boards to make them easier to read.
A significant improvement as you all can see. We iterated on the overall design 3 times before we settled on this and we feel it is much improved over the old version. As a side note just in case anyone is wondering why the cards do not feature the Heroes from the boxed games in the art, the cards are meant to be used for their respective class generally. So, we used a variety of “generic” versions of said class to convey that. We have a unifying aesthetic choice as well as color coordination for each class so you know which one you are looking at but we wanted to show the variety of options available when creating a custom Hero.
“Sundrop” Style Paint Option
The “Sundrop” style paint seems to be stuck in Illinois, so this is package number 2 I have had issues getting to me which is frustrating but I will be following up on this to see why it has been stuck there for so long. As soon as I get it, I will get some models painted and pictures taken so show you all how it looks!
Blood Throne App Update
We just got the app to work peer to peer last month which was a big step. That had been tripping us up for months, but we now have the ability for two players to start a game and have the same data appear on both devices and update as you play. Now, we need to update the database for the finalized version of the rules as it currently has an older version of the ruleset we had used as a placeholder. We also have to work on the UI (user interface). The app functions well but sure is not pretty at this point haha, but we are prioritizing function over form for the MVP version of the software. As soon as I have a video I can show I will post it but we want to make it look a bit prettier before showing it off as first impressions matter a lot. However, it works! That is the most important part.
Blood Throne 3D Terrain!
Our friends over at Terrainiacs have made some 3D terrain that is compatible with Blood Throne! You can check it out here, they are already funded.
The terrain looks awesome, I have some here and our test group plays with it. You can get the STL files to print it yourself or have them print it and send it to you. The city of Jasmir is where the core game takes place. You can get some additional lore over on their Kickstarter page for those interested. These fine gentlemen also designed and made the actual Blood Throne we had at the las Vegas Open!
Just as a reminder, The City of Jasmir terrain Kickstarter is not connected to us here with Blood Throne and is a separate company and separate project although we obviously endorse it and hope you consider backing it.
Thanks for reading! I will get that first class in depth article posted in the next few days and we will have another podcast tomorrow (the 20th of September).